


Landslide

by procrastinationfairy



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, i could tag everything but since this is a general au i'm not going to clog the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5979502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinationfairy/pseuds/procrastinationfairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Military interest in the Elric brothers sends them from the care of the Rockbells to Olivier Mira Armstrong and Briggs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Landslide

**Author's Note:**

> AKA the Momlivier AU. I’ve been super excited for this, and I know this AU probably sounds crazy, but there’s a lot going into it. I’ll admit, Olivier doesn’t seem like an obvious mother figure, but I find the idea of the boys growing up at Briggs incredibly fascinating. The stark differences between Olivier and Trisha are ever better in my opinion. This will be a complete AU from the time of Trisha’s death to the end of the series. I can’t promise much about updates until summer, at which point I hope to get out a chapter every week.

 

Ed didn’t cry at Trisha’s funeral.

Al cried.  The sleeves of his black suit were soaked with tears, and his repetitions of “Mommy!” were eventually quieted when Aunt Rockbell lifted him and tried to soothe him, Winry clinging to her hip. Al was so small. He didn’t understand where their mom was going or what had happened. He just wanted his mom back. He wanted his dad to come home and fix everything.

Ed didn’t cry. He’d watched his mom die. He knew what was coming. And he knew his father wasn’t coming back.

Their mother had died waiting for him.

The funeral dragged on. People who had never had anything good to say about Trisha showed up and lamented the life of someone so good, so innocent. A few, less couth, visitors made snide comments about Ed and Al’s father ruining her life.

“She had such good chances,” they said. “She could have married just about anyone she wanted. Poor thing. Just one bad decision.”

Aunt and Uncle Rockbell tried to keep them from hearing it. Whenever they heard someone speak, they began some sort of silly game with the boys, trying to coax them into smiles. It didn’t word. Ed couldn’t help but think they were right. Van Hohenheim had ruined Trisha Elric’s life.

He said as much to Winry when he and his brother had been taken back to the Rockbell’s house that night. Aunt and Uncle Rockbell had tucked them all into bed after dinner—dinner where Granny hadn’t even made Ed drink his milk.  Ed couldn’t even enjoy that. Their mom was dead, and she wasn’t coming back. They were all alone.

“Don’t say that,” Winry said softly. She was lying on the other side of Al, and she’d propped herself up on the pillow. Al had already fallen asleep between them, exhausted from crying. His face looked peaceful excluding the tear tracks that marred his cheeks. He looked so small, even though he was ever so slightly taller than Ed. Ed would do anything for Al. He looked back to Winry, who yawned and pushed her slightly overgrown bangs away from her forehead. He could barely see her in the light peeping through the curtains, her silhouette almost ethereal in the shadows. She’d been quiet most of the day, as if she was unsure how to treat her friends, but she still offered Ed a small smile.

Ed remembered a time when that smile made him sure she would be his wife. He and Al had both claimed Winry for their future wife. It made sense. She was one of the only children who would play with them, and even their other friends won’t go near them when their parents were around. Parents were so judgmental. They had no idea what they did to their children. Ed looked back to Winry, who was staring at him in concern.

“It’s true,” Ed replied. He turned onto his stomach and looked down at the bed, his fingers digging into the sheets. “He left us. He hates us. He left Mom to die.”

Winry looked appalled. She’d always liked her Uncle Hohenheim. He’d lifted her onto his shoulders, swung her around, played the fourth guest at her tea parties. He hadn’t even gotten mad when she’d dissembled his glasses. “Don’t say that.”

Ed’s face scrunched up. “He did. We called him. And he didn’t come back.”

“Maybe… Maybe he just didn’t know,” Winry tried to argue.

“He does!”

Al stirred slightly between them, and Ed reached out to soothe him, apologizing softly.

“He knows,” Ed said darkly.

Winry shook her head. “Uncle Hohenheim wouldn’t just leave you. He must have had a reason.”

Ed scoffed. Their mother had always said he had a reason. Al always asked when Daddy was coming home.

Winry stared at him a moment longer before flopping down onto the bed. She turned onto her side, facing away from her friends. Ed glanced at her and sighed. He didn’t say anything, but he hesitantly settled down himself. Instead of closing his eyes, he stared at the moonbeam lighting up one of the floorboards, watching the dust float through the light.

He heard the door click shut. He didn’t bother looking over.

* * *

Trisha hadn’t specified what was to happen to her sons if something were to happen to her. She’d been young and healthy. There hadn’t been any need to make a will, but there was an unspoken agreement between the Elrics and the Rockbells that they took care of each other. Had the children been a little older, there would have been no problem. But in a house as small as the Rockbells’, three adults and three children under five was crowded, and how to feed them all?

“We can’t go to Ishval,” Sarah told her husband. “Your mother can’t take care of the three of them by herself.”

Yuriy sighed and ran his hand over his face. “We have to go. The government ordered us… And what would we do without the money anyway?”

Sarah glanced over at Pinako at the stove, and then at the three children running around in the yard. It had rained the night before, and a muddy puddle had formed. Ed was standing in the middle of it, mud clinging up to the middle of his calves. Al had some in his hair. Winry had lifted the bottom of her dress and seemed to be yelling at them. Probably for getting mud on her.

Pinako shook her head. “Don’t you worry about me. I can handle them.”

“Mom,” Yuriy began.

Pinako shook her head indignantly. “I raised you, and you were more trouble than the three of them. Trust me. I can handle this.”

“Yeah, but you were—” Yuriy stopped at a look from his mother. “Ed. Ed is trouble.”

“He’s a good kid,” Pinako sighed. “We can’t just send them away. They have nowhere else to go. And you know what people around here said about Trisha, let alone Hohenheim. They’re going to think those kids are trouble, and they haven’t done anything wrong.”

Yuriy looked a little chastised. Sarah frowned at the mention of her friend, wishing for a moment she’d never brought Trisha to Resembool, never let her meet Hohenheim. Guilt pierced her stomach when she looked at the children.

“I just don’t know how we’re going to do this,” Yuriy sighed after a moment.

The door was flung open, and the children ran inside, Den between them. She was covered in mud, and she tried to shake it off, splattering the kitchen. Sarah gasped and hopped up from her seat at the table, searching for a rag. Yuriy followed. The children giggled happily.

“Bad doggy!”

“Den! Den!”

Yuriy and Sarah exchanged looks as they tried to clean up the kitchen. Pinako turned to scold the kids, and they looked guilty for a moment until she shooed them into the bathroom.

“I swear, those children,” Pinako shook her head.

Yuriy pressed his lips together.

“This is exactly what I mean. What are you going to do without us here?” Sarah asked.

Pinako brushed it aside with her hand. “I’ll figure it out. We’ll be okay. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Granny, look, I caught a bug!” Al yelled, running out of the bathroom, freshly cleaned. He held a tiny grasshopper in his hands and looked down at it with wide eyes. “Can I keep him, _please_? His name is Herbert. Say hi to Granny, Herbert.” The grasshopper was silent. “He’s shy.”

Pinako smiled gently. “Al, Herbert likes it better outside. You can visit him tomorrow, okay?”

Al frowned and pouted. “But, Granny, he’s my friend!”

“And your friend can visit tomorrow. Right now, we need to have dinner,” she replied. Winry and Ed came out of the bathroom as well, shoving each other aside in their haste to get to the table. Al sighed before moving back to the door to let the grasshopper go. “And wash your hands again!”

“Granny, tell Ed to stop pushing me!”

“She pushed me first!”

The adults attempted to ignore the rambunctious activities of the children while they ate. Discussion of what to do with the Elric brothers was pushed off for a while, until the meal was finished and the children had run off again.

“Can we really handle this every night?” Sarah asked softly. Yuriy laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder and rubbed it gently. “We agreed that we only wanted Winry so we could devote all our time to her. Now we have three children. Yuriy…”

Pinako set the dishes in the sink before moving to light a cigar. “Life throws you curveballs, Sarah. You have to get used to it. The Elrics are here now.”

Yuriy made a hesitant smile. “Winry isn’t complaining.”

“Not yet,” Sarah said.

Pinako blew a ring of smoke. “It will be fine. You two worry too much,” she shook her head.

Sarah ran a hand through her hair. “Of course we worry!” she exclaimed. “I have no idea how to deal with Ed. I never have. Trisha was the only one who could get him through his moods, and she—” She choked him suddenly, burying her head in her hands and sobbing. Yuriy moved to his wife’s side, pulling her into his arms. Sarah wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck, allowing herself only a moment to mourn her friend.

Turning away pointedly, Pinako looked out the window. “Ed needs special attention. But Trisha knew him well. I’m sure we’ll get to know him now that he lives with us.”

Yuriy and Sarah fell silent. It was clear that there was no arguing with Pinako on that point. She wouldn’t let Ed and Al go. There was nothing else to be done but to find some way to support the whole family.

“How did Trisha care for the boys?” Yuriy asked after a moment. “She didn’t work, I know.”

Pinako took another drag from her cigar. “Hohenheim had money. I don’t know where from, but he left enough to care for them. She used a lot of it in her treatment though.”

“If he has money, why isn’t he here?” Sarah asked bitterly. Pinako turned to give her a warning look, but she persisted. “Don’t even try to defend him. You saw what waiting for him did to her. She should have died with her husband by her side. Hell, he wasn’t even her husband!”

Pinako stared at her daughter-in-law calmly. “Hohenheim would never have married her,” she said after a moment. “Trisha knew that. I can’t say I agree with her actions, but she made her choices. And he has his reasons. Maybe he shouldn’t have made a family. That doesn’t matter now. Ed and Al need their father, and we don’t know when he’ll be back. We just have to make the best of it.”

* * *

Sarah Armstrong Rockbell was Sarah Greta Armstrong when she met her future husband. Her mother, the younger sister of Philip Gargantos Armstrong, hadn’t spoken with her brother in years. There was a slight jealousy of his inheritance of the Armstrong family home and all that it entailed. Sarah had never been close to her Armstrong cousins, but she hadn’t liked to surrender the name completely. She was an Armstrong, wed or unwed.

In spite of her stringent connection to the Armstrong clan, she kept no correspondence with anyone on that side of family, excepting a few announcements throughout the years (and a short visit after Winry’s birth). Her familiarity with the main Armstrong family was so little that she didn’t recognize the seal on the letter handed to her on a cool Sunday morning three months after Trisha Elric’s death.

“I thought no one ran mail today,” she said to the runner. The boy shrugged as he tugged his bag back over his shoulders.

“Special delivery,” he said.

Before Sarah could ask more, he ran off, presumably to return home now that the matter had been settled. She stared at the unfamiliar writing sprawled across the envelope, furrowed her brow at the return address. The neat handwriting caught her eye, with its cool precise lines, but the name was even more surprising.

Armstrong.

She frowned and immediately tore it open.

_The Rockbell Family  
Resembool, East Amestris_

_It recently came to my attention that two alchemist children have lost their mother. I heard that my cousins were caring for them. Your concern is admirable, but you do not have the necessary resources to have three children on your own. Due to the military’s interest in these boys, I have been tasked with ensuring their safety._

_I will be in Resembool within a week to take the Elrics to Briggs with me. Do not resist._

_Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong_

Her vague knowledge of her cousins reminded her that Olivier was the eldest, a strong military woman, like many others in their family. Sarah didn’t know what interest the military could have in those boys, but she didn’t want to know.

The Rockbells would not give the Elrics up to the military.

Perhaps it stung that the Armstrongs had more interest in boys with no relation than to Winry, but Sarah liked to think that she was a reasonable woman. It was no slight to Winry. She had parents. The Elrics had none. But, no, they had the Rockbells. They didn’t need the Armstrongs.

It wasn’t even the Armstrongs. It was Olivier and the military.

Sarah made a noise of disgust and ran inside. “Yuriy!” she yelled, head flicking around as she darted from room to room.

“Sarah, what are you doing?” Pinako grumbled, exasperated, as she opened the door to her office.

Sarah let out a slow breath and turned to her mother-in-law. “Where’s Yuriy?”

“At the market. He left about half an hou—”

“Oh—” Sarah cursed, her grip tightening around the letter in her hands. She paused before thrusting it towards Pinako. “Look at that.”

Pinako hesitated, giving the letter a disdainful look, then took it in hand and read it slowly. “…I see.”

“We’re not going to let them take the Elrics, right?” Sarah almost pleaded.

Pinako set the letter down on the counter and pulled her glasses from her face, wiping them on a non-grease-covered spot of her apron.

“They’re just kids. They can’t go with the _military_. And Briggs!” Sarah slammed her fist against her leg in frustration. “Briggs is no place for kids. We won’t let them take them.”

Pinako was silent.

“Right?” Sarah asked a little less furiously.

“Sarah, I’m not sure we have much of a choice.”

* * *

The Elrics didn’t have many things. Each boy had about a week’s worth of clothes, easily packed into a single suitcase, along with a few toys and books and other things their mother had given them. When that was all packed up, they were sent to sit out on the porch to wait for their new caretakers.

No one in the Rockbell house was in a good mood that morning. Alphonse was confused and disconcerted. He wanted his mother. He wanted his father. He wanted the Rockbells. But Al was too sweet to openly complain, especially after the explanation they’d been given.  Ed was bitter. He hadn’t expected the Rockbells to abandon them as well. It was different, at least. They weren’t leaving. They were sending them away. Winry was frustrated. She’d grown accustomed her constant companions, and if they left, she’d be alone again. Even more alone than before, since the Elrics wouldn’t be a short walk away.

“Why do they have to go all the way to Briggs, Mommy?” Winry whined, clutching onto the skirt of her mother’s dress. Sarah scolded her and tugged her hands away from the fabric.

“Hush, Winry,” was all she said.

Al shuffled his feet slightly, his shoes, a little too big, dangling. He stared at the scuff marks on the toe from when they’d been Ed’s, as shoes were the only hand-me-downs Al got. The suitcase in his hands was a little too large, and he struggled to hold it up. Ed sighed as he looked over to his brother.

“Let me take it, Al.”

“No, brother, you can’t carry both,” Al insisted.

“Sure I can!” Ed replied.

Pinako shook her head and cackled. “Pipsqueak, there’s no way.”

Just as Ed was ready to prove his strength, a car came up the road, stirring up a cloud of dust that obscured its appearance. The crowd on the porch watched the cloud intently as it came to a stop in front of the white fence at the border of the property. The dust died down, and then the car’s inhabitants appeared, first a small, severe-looking woman, then a large, equally harsh man. The woman led the way, making it clear to all that she was completely in charge. No one spoke a word until she’d stopped a few feet away from the porch. She looked directly at Sarah for a moment before turning to the boys.

“You must be the Elric brothers,” she said.

Ed immediately dropped his bag and stretched to make himself look taller. “I’m the oldest!”

Al beamed brightly and did the same. “But I’m taller!”

Ed turned to Al, fist outstretched. The woman caught it.

“There will be no fighting,” she ordered. When Ed and Al were suitably chastised by her look, she pulled her hands back and placed them behind her back. “I am Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong. You may call me the general. Understand?”

Ed and Al’s eyes grew wide. They lowered their gazes and straightened up.

 “Yes, ma’am… General.”

Pinako raised a brow and coughed. “Never thought I’d meet anyone other than Trisha who could control those boys.”

Olivier stared at the brothers a moment longer before turning away. “Bucaneer, take their bags. We need to get back to Briggs.” She paused and glanced back. “And find some child snow suits.”


End file.
